Twitter for Beginners: The Complete Guide

If you are considering joining Twitter, but are feeling a little bit intimidated then this is the article for you.

You’re about to discover the many benefits that Twitter has, and hopefully find that it’s easier to set up than you thought.

Twitter is a fantastic promotional tool for your business, providing a terrific stage for you to connect with your target audience, and present them with tailored content designed to get their attention.

After reading this article, you’ll be tweeting like a duck to water (or some other analogy that works!!)

Step 1: Set Up Your Profile.

Choosing your profile name (aka handle).

This is how you’ll be known on Twitter, so it’s important to get it right. It’s a good idea to keep it short as-well as memorable, so that it doesn’t eat up too many characters. So, if you are a baker or a mechanic then maybe something like @cupcakecrazy or @carcrazy. You can use capital letters for visual emphasis if you like, but people will still be able to find you if they type in lowercase letters.

Photos and Images. Twitter gives you two spaces to make an impact with a photo of you, your products or something else that represents you. If you don’t’ upload a photo for your profile picture, then Twitter will display an egg, which shows you haven’t yet “hatched”. It will be best to use your logo if you don’t possess a photo of yourself that you like. Oh, and remember to use a photo that is business-like. (Probably not the best place to put your football teams emblem, or your cat.) The second space is for your cover photo and this is much bigger. This is where you should show what it is you or your business are all about. For image sizes read this guide.

Colour Palette. This isn’t a particularly important aspect for your Twitter set up, but if you want to bring in your brand’s colours, simply click on ‘Edit Profile’ and then the ‘Theme Colour’ button on the left side. From there, you can choose different colours or add your own to match your brand’s exactly.

Complete Your Biography. This where everyone will find out about you, but only using 160 characters so make them count by only including the most important and interesting.

Add Your Website. Twitter is a great place to showcase your website – so don’t miss this one!

Step 2: Follow Some People

This is important for two reasons: The first being that you will learn a lot from following other companies. Second, in order to get followed yourself, you have to do some following. Gettit?

This is how we announce that we’re on Twitter, and hopefully get followed back by at least some of them. So, don’t be shy – just say hi!

Step 3: Get to grips with the Twitter Lingo

This particular social network has some key elements you’ll want to familiarize yourself with. So, let’s get to it:

Hashtags #

(The things that look like a noughts and crosses board.) Hashtags are how to find out about subjects and conversations of interest.

Handles This is another term for your profile name. E.G. @carcrazy.

Retweets📷

These are like a share on Facebook, and are like gold for your content. Retweet, in effect means “Repost This Content” so that your followers will see it. You can retweet content by simply clicking the button below the text. Once you start tweeting, you’ll hope that people retweet your own content too.

Mentions📷

When someone talks to you on Twitter, or talks about you, it’s called a Mention.

Step 4: Decide What to Tweet About

OK, so what will you be saying on Twitter? Will promoting your products and services, or providing commentary on things that involve your brand? This will evolve over time, but this one of the important first steps. There will be some trial and error until you figure out what works best, but coming up with some preliminary content ideas will be very helpful.

Be sure to utilize the Pinned tweet option which lets you put your best or most important at the top of the page, so that when they visit your profile it’ll be the first thing they see, and so will give a good idea what you’re about.

Step 5: Join Trending Hashtags

One of the best things about Twitter is that it doesn’t cost anything to join the conversation and potentially go viral. Every day, every hour, people are getting involved with trending topics – and you will too. It’s a very effective way to introduce your products and services, to people on Twitter who you might not otherwise have come into contact with.

Depending on the type of business, you may want to play with your location settings. For example, if you can deliver nationwide, you can choose the United Kingdom; if you only service the Sheffield area, then you may want to specify that region.

To do this, just click the ‘change’ text that sits next to your trending hashtag banner on the right side of your profile.

Step 6: Maintain Your Channel

Update, Update, Update. Coming up with a tweeting schedule is a good start. The hard part though, is sticking to it. If people visit your profile and see that you haven’t tweeted anything for 6 months, then they might decide to move on or un-follow you. This doesn’t mean that you need to tweet 20 times a day, just once a week will do, but whatever you decide make sure you stick to it.

For best results, try tweeting every couple of days with varied content. E.g. Benefits of one of your products, A snippet of information that you have learnt from experience, an uplifting quotation, or even a funny tweet – you’ll see the love in the retweets.